Big guy stands up for himself by not allowing parents to use him to intimidate their children

Parenting is not everyone's cup of tea. Some people end up using vicious parenting practices that often have long-term effects on their children. It's even worse when parents begin to rely on strangers to make their kids behave properly. u/A_Nameless11 shared a story about how parents often use him to discipline their kids due to his height. 

The man shares how he has experienced many such incidents and how it was a "recurring theme" for him. In his post, he explained that he was not overly huge but stood at 6'3", weighing 230 pounds with quite a bit of muscle. He describes himself by saying, "I'm above average but by no stretch monstrous." The man went on to reveal that parents would frequently notice his above-average stature and point to him to scare their kids into listening to them.

He also shares how it was never people he knew and was always strangers. These people would try to convince their kids that the man would take them away, hit them or even eat them if they did not behave properly. This one time, things were different because the man recognized the lady as someone who'd done the same thing sometime back. Everyone was standing in line at a supermarket when her kid began acting out. The woman told her child, "If you don't start behaving, I'm going to let this guy take you home and spank you."

The kid was naturally scared to hear this and looked at the man anxiously. But the man was getting sick of being treated like this, so he told the kid, "If you keep being a****** to your mom, I'll buy you whatever candy bar you want." The woman was "aghast" hearing this, but she left immediately as she had finished checking out her items. He wrote, "The kid was scanning the candy section and weighing his odds." The man wished that the woman took a "more confrontational" approach to the story but noted that she only ended up whining to the guy at the self-checkout counter.

People on the platform loved how the man handled the delicate situation and shared their thoughts in the comment section. u/MnMnGood said, "My parents used to say stuff like that. It messed me up pretty badly growing up thinking that some random person might start wailing on you if you didn't act just right." u/Historical-Peach6945 commented, "I'm a nurse and often parents will tell the child that I will tell them off or give them an injection if they don't behave. I tell the children that I will not at all as I am there to help them, not frighten them."

u/celestialxkitty shared, "I hate s*** like this; when I was a child, my grandmother had me terrified of the police because she always told me they were coming to take me away. Kind of backfired on the day when I got lost and was hiding from a police officer that probably could've helped me, lmao." u/meerlyacat highlighted, "This is such a bizarre thing to do. I don't understand why anyone would want to scare their child into behaving. That's so messed up."